Over 450 Jewish creatives, professionals, and executives working in Hollywood criticized The Zone of Interest director Jonathan Glazer in an open letter after his Oscars speech in which he refuted his own “Jewishness” in a critique of Israel’s war against Hamas.
Glazer accepted the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film for his work, which tells the story of Auschwitz Commandant Rudolf Hoss and his family as they live outside the concentration camp.
During his speech, the director appeared to compare the actions of Nazi Germany to those of Israel in its war against Hamas following the brutal terrorist attacks on Oct. 7.
“Right now, we stand here as men who refute their Jewishness and the Holocaust being hijacked by an occupation, which has led to conflict for so many innocent people,” he said. “Whether the victims of Oct. 7 in Israel or the ongoing attack on Gaza or the victims of this dehumanization, how do we resist?”
The speech may have been applauded by the Oscars crowd, but for over 450 Hollywood professionals of Jewish descent, the words of the 58-year-old director give “credence to the modern blood libel that fuels a growing anti-Jewish hatred around the world,” according to a report citing the letter.
“We refute our Jewishness being hijacked for the purpose of drawing a moral equivalence between a Nazi regime that sought to exterminate a race of people, and an Israeli nation that seeks to avert its own extermination,” the open letter read.
“Every civilian death in Gaza is tragic. Israel is not targeting civilians. It is targeting Hamas. The moment Hamas releases the hostages and surrenders, is the moment this heartbreaking war ends. This has been true since the Hamas attacks of October 7th,” it continued.
Glazer’s “use of words like ‘occupation’” to define the “indigenous Jewish people” now fighting to defend their homeland is a distortion of history, the letter argued.
“It gives credence to the modern blood libel that fuels a growing anti-Jewish hatred around the world, in the United States, and in Hollywood,” it read. “The current climate of growing antisemitism only underscores the need for the Jewish State of Israel, a place which will always take us in, as no state did during the Holocaust depicted in Mr. Glazer’s film.”
Danny Cohen, the executive producer and co-financier of The Zone of Interest, condemned Glazer’s speech Friday, according to the report.
“I just fundamentally disagree with Jonathan on this,” Cohen said. “The war and the continuation of the war is the responsibility of Hamas, a genocidal terrorist organization which continues to hold and abuse the hostages, which doesn’t use its tunnels to protect the innocent civilians of Gaza but uses it to hide themselves and allow Palestinians to die.”
“It’s really important to recognize it’s upset a lot of people, and a lot of people feel upset and angry about it. And I understand that anger, frankly,” he said.
It is “regrettable” that The Zone of Interest is now being overshadowed by Glazer’s speech, according to Cohen.
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“John spent 10 years making the film and has made something remarkable, but people are talking more this week about what he said for 30 seconds,” the executive producer said.
“I think that’s regrettable because I’d love just the conversation that he focused on, on the film itself,” Cohen said. “So, John has the right to say what he wants to say, but, you know, I don’t agree with what he said.”